1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a legged locomotion robot, which is equipped with a camera for capturing the surroundings including a floor ahead in the traveling direction of a robot and which moves while recognizing the shape of the floor on the basis of the image captured by the camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
As conventional techniques related to this type of legged locomotion robot, there are known, for example, a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-166380 (Document 1) and a technique, titled “A Floor and Obstacle Height Map for 3D Navigation of a Humanoid Robot” by Jens-Steffen Gutmann, Masaki Fukuchi, and Masahiro Fujita (Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Barcelona, Spain, Apr. 2005) (Document 2).
In the technique disclosed in Document 1, the camera captures the surroundings in the wide angle range (for example, 180°) in front of the robot, so that the robot can recognize the shape, size, and position of the terrain or object in the whole area of the captured range on the basis of the captured image. Then, the recognized information is reflected on the motion control of the arms (legs) of the robot.
In the technique disclosed in Document 2, a floor height map is created by measuring the height of each divided area of the floor divided into a grid in the surroundings of the robot on the basis of the image captured by a stereo camera, so that the robot can recognize the floor where it can move in distinction from an obstacle to be avoided.